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Monday 15th October 2018 Guided Walk down the Dove Valley with Dr Catherine Parker Heath Cultural Heritage Officer for South West Peak Partnership.

South West Peak Partnership have asked us to post details of the following walking event. Please note that this is not organised by Buxton Civic Association and any queries about the walk should be directed to the South West Peak Partnership. Contact Details can be found at the bottom of this post.

This walk is for all those interested in the South West Peak, its history and archaeology, whether you are a current or potential volunteer, or not!

About the walk:

Meet at Hartington Market Place NGR: SK128603 at 10:00am to take a minibus to the start of the walk at Buxton Raceway.
Finish back at Hartington at 4:00pm (approx.)

Distance: about 8 miles, Terrain: fields, tracks, sections of road, rough ground.
Bring a packed lunch, stout footwear and suitable clothing for the weather.
We will stop for breaks and lunch en-route. Refreshments available to buy from various tea shops and other establishments in Hartington before setting off and at the end.

Toilets at Hartington Station and various tea shops and other establishments in Hartington before and after walk, but, unfortunately, not en-route.

Along the Upper Dove Valley, evidence exists of human activity that dates from the Palaeolithic to the present day. At the very edge of the South West Peak, the Dove Valley is not only a boundary between the counties of Derbyshire and Staffordshire but also between different geologies and geographies, which have informed how people have lived here in the past. Join us to find out more!

Grant funding brings a welcome to the woods

Until a few years ago one of the best kept secrets in Buxton was who was the owners of the beautiful woods that surround the town and add so much to its character.

Most locals and many visitors have spent time in the woods, enjoying the trees, the bird song and in May in Corbar the spectacular blue bell display.

They enjoy following the sculpture trail in Grin Low woods or perhaps stopping to pass the time of day with the quarryman who sits on the main route up to Solomon's Temple.

But ask them who owns the woods and 4 out of 5 will look blank before offering the Council as a possibility.

Now with the help and support of the Leader Project, part funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Economic Development, the woods have welcome signs at the entrances and a range of interesting, informative interpretation signs at key points in the woods, to explain and encourage people to look about them. To add to the interest some of these signs change with the seasons.

So now there is no excuse for not knowing who owns the beautiful woodlands.

Sculptor Lorraine Botterill has produced a series of carved finger posts to help guide walkers along the green route in Grin Woods. The finger posts represent some of the things that you might get to see on a woodland walk.

Coalfields Guided Walk

Dr Alan Robert's BCA Director and Chair of the Places and Spaces Group will be leading a walk to trace the history and development of the Buxton Coalfields. The walk will be on Thursday 7th September and more details can be found on the link below.

Our latest walking guide is now available from Poole's Cavern Visitor Centre, price £2.50. Written by Lyn Noble it takes you on a journey to uncover the story behind 300 years of lime burning around Buxton. Ideal for individuals, groups or families.

Coal Mines of Buxton

On 8th September Buxton Civic Association helped celebrate the national Heritage Open Days by offering a guided walk around the coal mines of Buxton.

Despite a drizzly start the sun and a cooling breeze provided perfect conditions for our explorations on Burbage Moor. Fourteen visitors met at Poole’s Cavern, all booted and clad for the occasion. Before setting off, Alan Roberts and Lyn Noble set the scene by describing the historical and geological context of the coalfield. One group member had fond memories of BCA’s first coal mines walk which took place in “monsoon conditions”!

The walk started at Level Lane on Macclesfield Old Road, named after an 1803 mine “level” which was driven from this point. Then a fight with a few nettles and a steep climb to the moor to the location of an earlier level (1754), with remains of horse drawn tramways and coke ovens and rail sidings from a later period.

The top of Macclesfield Old Road provided an excellent view over the upper Goyt Valley and its extensive coal workings then back to the Axe Edge footpath where we examined air shafts to the levels beneath and speculated about the purpose of the “Buckett Engine Pits”.

Finally, down through an area of early shallow pits dating back to the 17th and early 18th Centuries and back to the cars. The sun continued to shine and the smiling faces (and aching legs) said it all.

In their excellent book, ‘The Coal mines of Buxton’ Alan Roberts and John Leach make the claim that the mining country around Buxton had some of the harshest and toughest working conditions in the country. Judging by the awful weather on Sunday 26th July, it was easy to believe it. It was a tribute to the dedication and hardiness of the 31 Buxton Civic Association members and their walking guides, Lyn Noble and Alan Roberts, that the walk took place at all.

The guided walk gave members and friends a fascinating glimpse of the significant coal mining industry that went on, on and under the moors above Buxton. Without expert guidance it would have been hard to see and to understand the extent of the workings in the landscape, as now only the ghost of traces of what went on in the hillls remain.

Starting at Cistern’s Clough, and making its way across the bleak Moorland and hill country above Buxton, the trail finishes at the Dukes Level, Ochre brook. The trail traces the origins of coal mining from the 16th century, right up to the closure of the last commercial mine in 1919. Now there is very little trace of the workings left, but with some expert guidance and a little imagination several features were revealed and it became clear that the landscape was littered with disused workings, mine shafts (now sealed), and traces of the raw material itself, albeit of a very poor quality.

The licenses for the mining were granted by the Chatsworth Estate. The coal that was extracted was mainly used for lime burning, and much of it would have found its way to Grin low. Improvements in transport links, such as the development of the canals and railways, and the increasing difficulty of extracting the coal from the workings due to flooding, meant that it became cheaper to use better quality coal from deeper mines elsewhere. The coal mines of Buxton ceased and fell into disrepair.

The plan is to repeat the walk again in the near future, and this will be the first of several heritage walks that Buxton Civic Association members are developing as a result of their ‘places and spaces’ project. If you are interested in finding out more about this and other projects that BCA are involved with, please have a look at the website on www.buxtoncivicassociation.org.uk or email us at communications@buxtoincivicassociation.org.uk

International dawn chorus day dawned, wet, very wet, and with just enough of a wind to make sure that you stayed chilled and cold. So it was just before five am on Sunday morning, that we, six adults and two children, gathered in Poole's Cavern visitor's car park, with rapidly dampening spirits and even damper Cagoules to celebrate international dawn chorus day with an early morning walk in Grin woods. A song thrush was awake though and despite the rain, sang us a welcome song, as we set off into the gloom and dankness of grin wood. Now I am not going to claim that I know the wood like the back of my hand, but over the twenty five years that I have been walking there, I guess I would say that I know it reasonably well. Not as well as the younger members of our party though. They seemed to know all the secret paths, and having the super observational skill of the young, had soon spotted what they thought might be badger claw marks. They might well have been right, but by now any self-respecting badger would have been tucked up in his sett; dry, warm, cosy and settling down for a nice lie in.

We stopped by the tree with the swinging branch and listened. Blackbirds and Robins competed with each other orchestrating a beautiful melody whilst in the background a wren favoured a more atonal call. As we moved on the rain intensified, robins and blackbirds continued to vie for pride of place and Steve claimed he heard a tree creeper.

We stopped again in the clearing that links the glades. A wood pigeon made a brief appearance, a blue tit kept up a steady barrage, and a couple of crows called from the top of the canopy. The light fitfully and reluctantly chased away the shadows and the wood began to resemble its old familiar self. The birds were falling silent. The rain was steady; we beat a hasty retreat back to the car park. It had been an experience.

The number and variety of species that we heard on Sunday was disappointing even allowing for the rain. One of the reasons for creating the woodland ride is to increase the variety of habitats available , that will in the long run improve the bio diversity of the wood and lead to an increase in the range of flora and fauna.

Species that we didn't hear but we know are in the woods are; Nuthatch, Coal and Great Tit, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler and Pied Flycatcher.

You can listen to a short clip of the some of the species that we heard by clicking on the link below.

Whenever there is snow on the ground and I am walking in the woods, usually Grinlow or Corbar, this poem always comes to mind. Perhaps Robert Frost's best known work, the poem is based on Frost's own experience in returning home from a market during a long and cold New England winter. Frost had had a less than successful day and had come home empty handed. There is a wistful feel to the poem, a desire to linger and delay the trip home perhaps? However his horse shakes him from his thoughts and aware of his responsibilities he sets of to finish his journey.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

If you go down to the woods today you might be in for a big surprise, as Buxton Civic Association have continued the work to improve the access to their woods by funding a footpath restoration project to Buxton Country Park. The pathways, which are popular routes through Grin Low woods, have become heavily eroded over the years causing many new minor paths to form which threatened to damage the delicate woodland flora and disturb wildlife.

Helped by a very generous donation of Limestone aggregate from Lafarge Tarmac and transportation by Lomas Distribution, Buxton Civic Association took the decision to plan and fund the resurfacing of the paths this autumn rather than wait until the spring. Mike Monaghan Director at BCA commented “The support from Lafarge Tarmac and Lomas is invaluable. Their support enables us to do more work on the paths, benefiting everyone who uses the woods and Country Park.”

Buxton Country Park woodland manager Alan Walker said ‘this will greatly improve access for visitors and local dog walkers, as well as enabling us to create and manage quiet sanctuary areas of woodland for wildlife to thrive’.

The hard work on the ground have been done by local landscaping expert Martin Wragg and his team from Oaktree landscapes who have previously completed path projects in Corbar and Sherbrook wood also funded by Buxton Civic Association. The new pathways take an alternative route from Poole’s Cavern through the lower part of the country park before rising towards Solomon’s Temple and Grin Low summit.